Game plan for Athens

Athens, Greece, Aug. 14, 2004. Day 2 of the Olympic Games. It is warm, with outdoor temperatures surpassing 90
degrees. The swimming competition begins in three hours, but already there is tension in the air, not to mention exhaust fumes, as a jet-lagged wave of
corporate guests steps out of the lobby of a central Athens luxury hotel, still digesting a late lunch (in true Athenian tradition). Some would have preferred
to try a local café, but the group has been warned not to stray from the hotel’s secure hospitality suites for meals.

Their private bus leaves again in 15 minutes to make a journey of about six miles
north to the open-air Olympic Aquatic Centre at the Athens Olympic Sports Complex.
Factoring in likely traffic tie-ups en route, it can take 50 minutes or more to
reach the site, even in the so-called “Olympic Lane.”

At the venue, lines form as spectators undergo meticulous security inspection.
Bags are searched and scanned. Magnetometers beep incessantly. Shoes and belts
come off. Cell phones are dumped into baskets.

Finally, the sun-baked seating area (a planned roof was scrapped in March after
delays) is in sight. It has just been “swept” by plainclothes security
staffers using portable detection equipment.The first athletes appear on the deck,
squinting in the glare though the “evening session” is about an hour
away.

It is now just after 6 p.m., but still sweltering. The competition will wrap up
in about three hours, followed by another long return trip, punctuated by occasional
hard braking as the driver avoids one of hundreds of motor scooters dashing along
Kifissias Avenue.

Traffic frequently intensifies after dark in this city of late diners. Tonight,
Athens is a city bursting at its seams with hundreds of thousands of visitors
moving around in motor coaches and private cars, or jamming the Metro subway.

Just like athletes in training, corporations, hospitality packagers, public relations agencies and news media organizations are sweating the details, imagining
scenarios and bracing for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, a host city with limited capacities in many areas except, of course, heritage.

A welcome distraction arrived last month when the Olympic flame of 2004 danced
to life, engulfing the tip of a torch while women in tradition-inspired priestess
garb observed solemnly.

The irony of the ritual is striking. In the moment of the flame’s rebirth,
it is all smoke and mirrors. The sun’s rays from skies above the village
of Olympia strike a concave, polished mirror, generating heat, vapors and, suddenly,
a flame. As a precaution, a backup torch was similarly ignited the day before,
in the event of clouds at the appointed hour.

Only 120 days removed from the Opening Ceremony in Athens, it remains to be seen
if promises by Greek government officials and Games organizers were born of smoke-and-mirrors
optimism. What is more certain is that there is no backup protecting this $2.38
billion endeavor by Greece. Barring truly catastrophic circumstances, the Aug.
13-29 Games will go on.

But how will they go down in history? During recent meetings in Athens, one International
Olympic Committee member, requesting anonymity, said: “We will know on the
30th of August.”

Veterans of Games on-site planning have an obligation to be as prepared for the
17 days as any world-class Olympian. Schedules must be kept. Hospitality and event
ticketing must run seamlessly. VIPs must be kept above the fray. But the underlying
concern shared universally — but discussed only privately — with four
months to go is whether the Athens Games ultimately will be shielded from terrorism,
both isolated and broadly orchestrated; whether an investment of nearly $1 billion
in security planning and training, or the recent addition of NATO air and tactical
support, is enough.

A cheap backpack bomb planted in an unsecured area of Atlanta during the 1996
Games killed one bystander and shut the Games down for three days. What would
be the reaction to a similarly isolated incident in Athens in a new era of terror?
It is a subplot, more worrisome since the deadly March 11 Madrid bombings, for
which the might of corporations and the sanctity of Olympic ideals are no match.

Everyone heads into Athens knowing that one incident in these times of heightened
tension further shatters the notion that the Games are off limits, a concept bruised
by the 1972 Munich hostage crisis after the athlete village was easily infiltrated.
A larger-scale terror attack in Athens would damage the investment returns on
$55 million each by 11 global sponsors (since 2001) and hundreds of millions in
broadcast rights, and perhaps threaten the viability of global sports events as
we have known them since Athens played host to the revival of the modern Olympic
era in 1896.

“Up to now, we haven’t received any indication of the existence of a
threat,” said Greek Ministry of Public Order spokesman Eleftherios Ikonomou
in an interview in Athens a week before the Madrid commuter rail attacks. “But
we do not rest. We keep working.”

Security check

Between 1997, when IOC members voted to award the Games to Athens, and 2000,
when the IOC realized little work had been done other than that which gave Athens
a stunning new international airport, intense scrutiny shifted to Games facilities
and transportation issues. After Sept. 11, 2001, security joined the urgency
list.

"Up to now, we haven't received any indication of the existence of a threat. But we do not rest. We keep working."

Eleftherios Ikonomou Greek Ministry of Public Order

Since then, a highly publicized effort by the Greek government and the Athens
2004 organizing committee (ATHOC) has evolved. ATHOC in 2002 brought in former
New South Wales police chief Peter Ryan, a Brit who headed security for the
successful Sydney 2000 Games, as its security czar. He is coordinating a 41,000-plus
team of personnel drawn from the Greek police, special forces, coast guard,
private agencies and volunteers.

Greece formed an Olympic Advisory Group to draw on the expertise of officials
from seven nations — Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Spain, the United
Kingdom and United States.

After a tedious bidding process that dragged into 2003, a contract was tendered
with U.S.-based Science Applications International Corp. to install the first
security communications infrastructure in the nation’s history, due to
be completed at the end of May. Greece was the only developed European country
without such a vital technological backbone.

“We give them the means,” said SAIC senior vice president David Tubbs,
head of the Athens project. “Then [ATHOC and the government] decide how
to use it.”

Working with its security allies, Greece has conducted a series of large-scale
security drills with catchy names such as Blue Odyssey and, in March, Hercules
Shield, involving 2,000 people from various forces. And following the long-awaited
March 7 national election, a new government moved quickly to secure an agreement
whereby NATO forces will supply air surveillance and technological support around
the period of the Games, expected to attract about 1 million visitors.

Jan Katzoff, chief executive of SportsMark Management Group, orchestrator of
Athens hospitality programs for 5,000 people from five corporations, including
Visa and Xerox, recalls Athens feeling cramped when he lived there briefly many
years ago. “Even then, people always used to say it was a city built for
half a million people,” he said. “Now it has 5 million.”

SportsMark expanded its support staff for these Games by 25 percent above its
typical manpower, he said.

“The big question marks are still transportation and security,” said
Olympic marketing manager Terry Dillman of Xerox Corp., which is ending a 10-year
run as worldwide sponsor after Athens. “I feel confident there [on security].
But you just don’t know if some suicide bomber is going to walk into Plaka
and blow up the [central city] square. How can we know what will happen?”

Dillman joined fellow sponsors in Athens during a series of workshops in March
that included a discussion of crisis communications. This is not a new topic
for Olympic sponsors, but it is more top of mind than ever.

The underwriters of the Games know there are risks in Athens, and that they
existed even in the pre-9/11 world. Greece has had porous borders for decades.
Its entry into the European Union only makes the country more accessible. Flying
into Athens from a major European hub such as Frankfurt, a traveler who has
made it that far is subject to little further scrutiny at the Athens airport.

Plus, as Rand Corp. terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman said in an interview, a network
such as al Qaeda is proving to be not only well organized but calculating. He
cites the Madrid bombings, widely seen as an al Qaeda operation, which appeared
orchestrated to turn an election in Spain. Voters responded.

“They’ve become as opportunistic as they are dangerous,” said
Hoffman, who in a prophetic 2003 white paper warned of smaller-scale, soft-target
strategies by the architects of 9/11.

Corporations with, in some cases, more than $100 million in fees, advertising,
equipment and manpower invested in the magic of the Games did not have control
over the IOC’s vote for Athens any more than they have control over a terrorist
scheme or poorly constructed arena. So they are left to focus on what they can
control. They can be well informed. They can provide options to guests. And
they can merely take comfort in the words of IOC President Jacques Rogge, who
repeatedly has praised Greece for doing everything possible to secure the host
city even as he has criticized the pace of construction and the feasibility
of ATHOC’s original timetables.

Olympic hospitality sites

The following are some of the key areas that corporate sponsors will be using for hospitality events during the 2004 Olympic Games.

Cruise liners docked as floating hotels at Piraeus port. Originally, 11 ships were scheduled, but
three operated by financially crippled Royal Olympia Cruises have been put on the sales block. Eight are now scheduled to be docked, including one
reserved for the U.S. Olympic Committee and Cunard’s gigantic, new Queen Mary 2, with accommodations for 2,600.

Sponsors are universally secretive about hospitality plans for Athens. Some,
such as John Hancock and Eastman Kodak, flatly refuse to allow their representatives
to discuss concerns or plans related to security or logistics. Companies want
to be aligned with the glorious elements of the Olympic rings, not the dubious.

“I don’t know that [security] is a creeping concern,” said Chris
Welton, who as CEO of Meridian Management, the IOC’s marketing services
arm, is closer to the pulse of the sponsor family than almost anyone. “It
has always been there and, certainly, the world situation isn’t getting
any less tense. I think [planners] have done everything they can do.”

While a majority of the Games’ worldwide sponsors have yet to acknowledge
any major changes of plans, other corporate groups with a lower profile are
calling audibles. Chicago-based event hospitality packager Intersport received
word in recent months that 100 guests from two corporate groups canceled Athens
plans, citing concern about safety issues, said Intersport senior vice president
Chuck Mycoff. Intersport would not identify the groups.

NBC is operating a substantial hospitality program based in Bermuda for advertisers
wishing to steer clear of Athens because of costs or anxiety. And the U.S. Olympic
Committee expects to be busy delivering on alternative packages it is arranging
during the Games at the opulent Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado.

A few sponsors such as ChevronTexaco, which is a U.S. team partner, dropped
Athens-based plans months ago. Others, like stalwarts Coca-Cola and Visa, at
least so far are not notching back. Visa will operate its reunion center for
visiting past Olympians. Coke has its public collectible-pin trading and live
radio broadcast sites, plus 135 locations pouring its beverages. Coke plans
to accommodate 1,200 guests arriving in five waves, said Petros Karachalios,
general manager of Coca-Cola’s Athens 2004 operations.

“The Greek government has provided unparalleled [security] resources,”
he said in an interview at Coke’s pre-Games nerve center. Asked how he
would respond to a colleague deciding to avoid the Games, Karachalios said,
“I will tell him he will lose the chance of his life — to see an Olympic
Games in Greece.”

USOC director of security Larry Buendorf, a former presidential Secret Service
agent, last year issued a stark warning about Athens’ perils in an address
to sponsors gathered for workshops in Colorado Springs, Colo. But he has stopped
short of advising athletes or corporate executives to stay home. A conference
call featuring Buendorf in early April outlined additional security measures.

Another security element coming into focus for sponsors involves protection
of high-profile athletes making paid appearances in Athens. Agent Sheryl Shade,
who represents several gymnasts expected to qualify for the U.S. team, said
the client’s fee is not the only point of discussion.

“Security is a question [in contract talks] now,” she said. “We
are asking, ‘How are they getting [to corporate events]? Who is taking
them?’ There are a lot of hospitality questions coming up now.”

The USOC has no blanket policy for athletes after they have competed. They are
essentially free to be spectators or paid greeters.

“It is really a function of the type of opportunity and the setting for
that opportunity, how controlled or secured the setting is,” said USOC
chief spokesman Darryl Seibel.

Security chief Buendorf coordinates athlete appearances with national governing
body personnel, the athlete and their representatives. “We do not unilaterally
make those decisions,” Seibel said.

Will work be finished?

Fear of the unknown is one thing. Revelations about the obvious are what have
planners squirming with four months remaining.

While the general public, media and IOC members fixate on mainstream symbols
of Athens’ procrastinations — principally the main Olympic stadium
and its perplexing, as-yet-uninstalled designer roof, and surrounding mounds
of earth — the Games’ countdown comes with other worries for what
chief executive David D’Alessandro of sponsor John Hancock calls “movie
extras,” those not competing or coaching.

"The big question marks are still transportation and security."

Terry Dillman Xerox Corp.

In fact, the Games and their competition venues likely will turn out to be just
fine. As of the past 30 days, ATHOC reports 28 of 39 venues are at least 90
percent finished. The USOC’s Bob Condron, a media services veteran at Games
since 1984, returned from Athens last month and proclaimed the athlete village
and facilities in totality might rank among the best in Olympic history.

But visitors and corporate employees need to be able to get to these places
without feeling like embedded war correspondents, and therein lurk the concerns (see "Getting around Athens").
In early March, ATHOC executive director and the man who would become, post-election,
the new Ministry of Culture’s general secretary responsible for Games oversight,
Spyros Capralos, stood before a group of international journalists to proclaim
ongoing suburban rail line and tram construction “will be completed.”

The new government under Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, it seems, will be
denied a honeymoon with Games pressures building. Less than three weeks after
Capralos’ guarantee, the Greek transport minister, Michalis Liapis, announced
there was not enough time to complete the suburban light-rail line linking central
Athens to the Piraeus port, site of eight cruise ships to be docked as hotels
and close to numerous coastal venues.

The Athens Metro remains an alternative. Some are advised to stay out of subways
because they can be prime terror targets, but the director of Athens Metro security
dismisses any need for extreme caution in his system, citing a recent $8.6 million
cash infusion by the government to cover long-neglected upgrades such as gas
masks, train shaft surveillance and tracking software.

“They should ride the Metro with no fear,” said Dimosthenes Giannissopoulos,
who expects 1.2 million passengers a day during the Games, twice as many as
usual. “Every train that leaves from a station will be scanned. Every train
we will know for sure that it is a ‘clean’ train. If someone will
[try to] plant a bomb, I will know.”

In the face of so many challenges, many decision makers remain defiant. Said
Xerox’s Dillman: “We are forging ahead. We haven’t changed anything.”

Carlson Marketing Group’s Rana Kardestuncer, director of event and sponsorship
marketing, replying by e-mail, said her agency’s staff in Athens is putting
its faith in Athenian drivers of buses it has hired for the Games. “We
are planning to use the designated Olympic lanes and hope the police can keep
these lanes clear,” she said. “If this is not the case, we trust our
experienced Athenian drivers will be able to navigate whatever is thrown at
them.”

Adds Meridian’s Welton: “We can try to give comfort that [transportation]
will go smoothly, but we never know until Games time.”

Sponsors and their hospitality specialists have been summoned to a two-day transportation
workshop in Athens late this month to tackle unresolved issues, such as sponsor
parking at venues, drop-and-load zones, airport arrival/departure operations
and private vehicle accreditation for the 1 percent or so eligible to be driven
between sites in cars.

“Normally, from the 10th of August to the end of the month [when locals
head off on holiday], Athens is a fantastic city,” said George Mavridies,
who will drive corporate clients exclusively in his Mercedes-Benz taxi during
the Games at a daily rate of $450. “You can drive from one end of Athens
to the other in 10 minutes. But don’t ask me about this August. It is difficult
to say. We can only guess.”

Bill Psarros said he has experienced the other extreme of Athens roads: four
auto accidents in two years. Over dinner in an Athens restaurant, the 49-year-old
television executive said he has come close several times to garaging his cars
for good. He is tired of the grind and, frankly, frightened by the threat of
another collision caused by a reckless driver.

Born in Greece, Psarros lived most of his adult life in other countries, nearly
30 years, before returning to work in Athens in late 2002. “It is not what
has changed that is shocking,” he said. “It is what has not changed.”

In his newly released book, “Wrestling With The Ancients: Modern Greek
Identity and the Olympics,” author Alexander Kitroeff details the overlooked
efforts to revive the modern Games in Athens decades before the IOC was formed
in 1894. A wealthy Greek, Euangeles Zappas, fronted the money to stage a series
of four Olympic festivals between 1859 and 1888 (the last three after Zappas’
death). Sports, trade and arts exhibitions were combined in each of the four.

Even in the mid- to late 1800s, pulling off these so-called Zappas Olympics
seemed to strain the Athenians’ lifestyle philosophy.

“The [first Zappas Olympic Games] were marred by very poor organization,
which was reported extensively in the Athenian press and which several writers
saw as an affront not only to the development of sport in Greece but also to
the country’s duty to its ancient past,” Kitroeff wrote. The second
Zappas Games in 1870 “initially scheduled for October, had to be postponed
to mid-November (probably because work at the stadium had lagged behind).”
By 1875, when the third Zappas Games began, “the games were not well-organized,
prompting one writer to describe them as ‘pan-Hellenic patience games.’”

Nearly 130 years later, patience is again stretched thin as Greece races to
be ready for the Games of the 28th Olympiad. Those planning visits can even
now imagine that a bulldozer rumbling out of view over a crest will scoop the
last pile of dirt up, even as a painter applies a final coat of paint to a venue,
and as a construction worker sweeps away his dust ahead of the first arriving
spectators.

As the days rush toward the Opening Ceremony, IOC members, sponsors, advertisers,
government security experts and athletes are left to wonder why a nation with
an Olympic birthright seemed frequently hesitant to embrace it.

“We are not the ancient Greeks,” said Mavridies, as he maneuvers his
taxi near the Saronikos Gulf along the Athens coastline. “We are a people
who like to make the money fast. We are not working too much. Thank God we have
the immigrants to be sure the work gets done. Even on the farms it’s not
the Greeks who are doing the work. The immigrants are working. The Greeks are
drinking coffee in the cafés.”